Post by Gaea on Mar 1, 2016 19:52:21 GMT -8
Nocturne plays fast and loose with a lot of Fire Emblem stuff - while ostensibly set in the backstory of FE7, before the Scouring that happened a millennium before the game, we're more of a "what if?" setup that explores just how much might have been lost in the Scouring. Which sounds cool on paper and all, but can make it pretty hard to figure out a character, so I'll try to compile some useful information and suggestions here.
The rules are here more to help you fit the character you want to play into the setting more than to keep you from playing what you want, but let's try not to get too crazy with it, alright? It's a trust thing - if the character shits on the setting, you're gonna have a bad time.
Origins
Everyone's gotta be born somewhere, right? Even weird magic ghost people, but more on that later. For most, there are two main flavors of backstory. Let's look at each real quick;
Aether/Nether-based youkai or dragons can hail from either realm, but otherwise your character probably came from somewhere in Elibe. 'Weird' backstories like homunculi or war dragons are fine, just talk it over with mods and try to stay out of the divinity shit, we don't take kindly to gods around these parts.
Proficiencies
Classes are gone, but the idea of limited weapon types is still around - main difference is that now you pick a couple proficiencies, aptitudes - whatever you wanna call them, they define how your character likes killing stuff. You can mix magic and melee together; Swords and Fire magic can lend itself to a swordmage who throws fireballs in between slashes, or maybe your sword shoots fire slashes at the bad guys. Maybe you just want a sword that's on fire and does nothing else special - that's fine too! The list of weapons can be found here, while magic can be found here.
Within those general guidelines, it's up to you to define what that proficiency actually means. "Swords" doesn't necessarily mean your character is a master of every bladed weapon; maybe they specialize in katanas, or maybe they dual wield zweihanders. Maybe your character uses one of the more exotic versions of that stuff, like a kama, or maybe you picked Swords+Thrown to explain that kusarigama you want to play with. Weaponmaster-type characters can still be good at a bunch of stuff, just be sensible about it, a blatantly samurai-esque character who spent his entire life honing his skill with the katana isn't going to be able to pick up the Buster Sword and instantly be an expert on it.
Magic follows the same guidelines - you should have a defined style of some sort, though how loosely or tightly defined, and how versatile, is up to you. Maybe your Thunder dragon can breathe a thin but lightning-fast blast of electricity at people, and enhance their attacks with electricity, but they can't go full Airbender and toss orbs of electricity around. Or maybe your bird Youkai chick is really good at all kinds of projectile and large-area destructive thunder magic, but CAN'T breathe it, and she's so focused on being a glass cannon that she skipped leg day and can't punch people with lightning. You can and probably should upgrade this in play, if your character goes from Magic Power 1 to Magic Power 4 over the course of 500 posts it's pretty reasonable to assume they got a LOT better with magic over time, but they're still probably gonna have specialties and preferred approaches to combat.
Skills
'Course, weapons aren't much without the skills to pay the bills. Or, er, use them. Skills are a measure of what you can actually DO with your weapons and magic and such, along with a broad range of weird tricks. But there are a lot of them, and it's not unreasonable to not be sure what to do with them. Let's summarize a bit.
Remember that you don't need to have everything maxed to still be pretty good at something - a swordsman can splurge into Magic Power 1 or 2 to add some oomph to his attacks without going crazy in range and area, or a mage can grab flight and teleportation to make up for their lacking direct-combat prowess. Or hey, maybe your mage's idea of combat is punching stuff in the face with explosions - maxing Strength, Magic Power, and Durability would pretty much turn you into Saitama, albeit a bit slower.
Tiers
Much like Fire Emblem games have various levels of classes - trainees, first, second, and occasionally third-tier classes - you can pick one of three tiers from your character here. Every character will have the same overall power level at 500 posts; these define your starting strength and growth rates.
Which tier you pick doesn't matter that much in the grand scheme of things - it won't screw you over long-term - so just go with whatever works for the character concept.
Guilds
While optional, aligning your character with an Arcadian Guild can help to provide excuses for them to run into other people, give ideas for topics, or in the case of the abrasive loner characters we all know andlove tolerate, 'force' them to interact with people people on a vaguely cordial level. The big four are the Hunter's Guild, the Adventurer's Guild, the Mercenary Guild, and the Ministry of Magic and Mystery, who apparently missed the notice about having matching names. You can still do jobs for a given guild without being part of it, and most adventurers do, but you get paid a lot less.
The rules are here more to help you fit the character you want to play into the setting more than to keep you from playing what you want, but let's try not to get too crazy with it, alright? It's a trust thing - if the character shits on the setting, you're gonna have a bad time.
Origins
Everyone's gotta be born somewhere, right? Even weird magic ghost people, but more on that later. For most, there are two main flavors of backstory. Let's look at each real quick;
- See Lycia on the map of Fire Emblem 7? See the ring of mountains around it? The area inside it is called the 'Lycian Divide' on Nocturne, and it's basically the one place on the continent that isn't full of things trying to kill you. You got your human farmers, bakers, some cities, forests that are more or less sorta safe (usually), all that boring stuff. Arcadia (the giant floating city) floats around in that area too, location varies, but it's somewhere around here. The Lycian Divide is good for more basic backstories of farmgirls and street rats dreaming of greatness, or Arcadia for a more fanciful flair
- Everything outside of that ring of mountains? No Man's Land, man. Known to Lycians as the "Outer Reaches," but to people living there, they have their own country names. Some of them are defined, but otherwise it's mostly a grey area where you can come up with your own slice of Elibe. Lots of small villages struggling to keep afloat, towns and even cities that might provide trade with people inside the Divide, or fortress cities in defensible locations. Go wild, just try not to make too sweeping of a creation - "an empire that rules all of eastern Elibe" is bad, "a small kingdom in the mountains of southeast Elibe" is fine. And don't worry too much about the specifics of the FE7 map, the continent looked a lot different before the Scouring blew it the hell up.
Aether/Nether-based youkai or dragons can hail from either realm, but otherwise your character probably came from somewhere in Elibe. 'Weird' backstories like homunculi or war dragons are fine, just talk it over with mods and try to stay out of the divinity shit, we don't take kindly to gods around these parts.
Proficiencies
Classes are gone, but the idea of limited weapon types is still around - main difference is that now you pick a couple proficiencies, aptitudes - whatever you wanna call them, they define how your character likes killing stuff. You can mix magic and melee together; Swords and Fire magic can lend itself to a swordmage who throws fireballs in between slashes, or maybe your sword shoots fire slashes at the bad guys. Maybe you just want a sword that's on fire and does nothing else special - that's fine too! The list of weapons can be found here, while magic can be found here.
Within those general guidelines, it's up to you to define what that proficiency actually means. "Swords" doesn't necessarily mean your character is a master of every bladed weapon; maybe they specialize in katanas, or maybe they dual wield zweihanders. Maybe your character uses one of the more exotic versions of that stuff, like a kama, or maybe you picked Swords+Thrown to explain that kusarigama you want to play with. Weaponmaster-type characters can still be good at a bunch of stuff, just be sensible about it, a blatantly samurai-esque character who spent his entire life honing his skill with the katana isn't going to be able to pick up the Buster Sword and instantly be an expert on it.
Magic follows the same guidelines - you should have a defined style of some sort, though how loosely or tightly defined, and how versatile, is up to you. Maybe your Thunder dragon can breathe a thin but lightning-fast blast of electricity at people, and enhance their attacks with electricity, but they can't go full Airbender and toss orbs of electricity around. Or maybe your bird Youkai chick is really good at all kinds of projectile and large-area destructive thunder magic, but CAN'T breathe it, and she's so focused on being a glass cannon that she skipped leg day and can't punch people with lightning. You can and probably should upgrade this in play, if your character goes from Magic Power 1 to Magic Power 4 over the course of 500 posts it's pretty reasonable to assume they got a LOT better with magic over time, but they're still probably gonna have specialties and preferred approaches to combat.
Skills
'Course, weapons aren't much without the skills to pay the bills. Or, er, use them. Skills are a measure of what you can actually DO with your weapons and magic and such, along with a broad range of weird tricks. But there are a lot of them, and it's not unreasonable to not be sure what to do with them. Let's summarize a bit.
- The various Magic abilities (Power, Range, Speed, Area) essentially define the limits of your magic; are you more of a sniper with crazy range and precision, or a tactical nuke with all kinds of AOE? Does your sword shoot giant murder lasers, or does it struggle to barbecue a puppy? Magic users and magic swordsmen alike all get a lot of value out of these skills.
- Strength, Durability, and Speed are more for the swords and axes side of things, and basically revolve around how good you are at hitting stuff or taking a hit. This is more warrior territory, but no one said mages couldn't be tanky as hell...
- Utility skills like healing and summoning are less primary combat and more ways to contribute outside of directly hitting a guy, whether it be with an army of meatshields or keeping your buddies alive
- One-off skills are generally very cheap investments that add a new dimension to your character - flight, teleportation, mounts, etc. They may or may not help much in a fight, but they fundamentally change how you can approach things by offering entirely new opportunities.
Remember that you don't need to have everything maxed to still be pretty good at something - a swordsman can splurge into Magic Power 1 or 2 to add some oomph to his attacks without going crazy in range and area, or a mage can grab flight and teleportation to make up for their lacking direct-combat prowess. Or hey, maybe your mage's idea of combat is punching stuff in the face with explosions - maxing Strength, Magic Power, and Durability would pretty much turn you into Saitama, albeit a bit slower.
Tiers
Much like Fire Emblem games have various levels of classes - trainees, first, second, and occasionally third-tier classes - you can pick one of three tiers from your character here. Every character will have the same overall power level at 500 posts; these define your starting strength and growth rates.
- Precious babbu characters start with only 1 skill point, but gain another every 50 posts. They represent beginning adventurers; those who are essentially average humans with one budding strength.
- Adventurers begin with 6 skill points, and gain another every 100 posts. They represent established adventurers or average dragons, sporting clearly superhuman abilities.
- Renowned adventurers begin with 10 skill points, but do not gain any more until Legendary promotion. We're talking ancient dragons, incredibly successful adventurers, worldbreaking mages. If they were once human, they certainly aren't anymore - this is closing in on Scouring Hero level power, though not until 500 posts would you match it. Starting at this level is allowed, but fairly limited to quality apps and good explanations.
Which tier you pick doesn't matter that much in the grand scheme of things - it won't screw you over long-term - so just go with whatever works for the character concept.
Guilds
While optional, aligning your character with an Arcadian Guild can help to provide excuses for them to run into other people, give ideas for topics, or in the case of the abrasive loner characters we all know and
- The Hunter's Guild is dedicated to finding and murdering monsters, dangerous youkai, and occasionally even rampaging dragons, all in the name of peace. Ostensibly, anyways. Realistically speaking, many members are just in it for the thrill of the hunt and testing themselves against strange and terrifying creatures, and the 'saving people' thing comes in a distant second. Hunters, especially monster hunters, range across Elibe, oftentimes chasing vague rumors from deep in the Outer Reaches.
- Explorers from the Adventurer's Guild work to penetrate the veil of confusion and secrecy surrounding most of Elibe, whether as mappers attempting to create the mythical complete map of Elibe, or glory-hounds chasing rumors of lost cities and ancient treasures.
- The Mercenary Guild wears its heart on its sleeve... metaphorically speaking. These are the guys that do jobs for other people. Maybe they get paid to go kill a monster, maybe they get paid to accompany some mapmakers, maybe you're rocking the high life as a caravan guard for a few weeks. There's always something to do, and for better or for worse, this is the one guild that accepts jobs that involve killing people - which has led to a great deal of criticism in the past.
- The Ministry of Magic and Mystery is viewed with a healthy mix and suspicion and confusion by most, but aside from the guildmaster's off-kilter sense of humor and questionable naming conventions, it's a perfectly legitimate guild that contributes greatly to Elibe. A great patron of the sciences, both hard and magical, it also provides a way for researchers of all disciplines to network. Many magi use the Ministry to learn more about their chosen arts, while adventurers who don't give a rat's ass about maps but DO want to learn all about ancient magics and forgotten superweapons can find information on possible targets. They also have a really big library, and there are a few members who pretty much never leave it - the Ministry of Magic and Mystery is probably the premiere source of information in Elibe.
